Conventionally, a lever-type winch is fitted with an idler device for unmeshing an intermediate driven gear from the pinion of the gearing-down mechanism and allowing the length of the load chain to be adjusted to a desired length when there is no load on the winch.
However, with a conventional lever-type winch idler device, because if the pinion is strongly pulled intentionally by users even when there is a load on the winch, the pinion can be pulled away from the intermediate driven gear when the load on the winch is not so heavy, there is a danger of the winch going into the idled state and the load being dropped.
Also, because conventional idler devices have a construction in which a pinion shaft formed as one body with the pinion is moved axially, the idler mechanism is large and complicated, and it is difficult to simply and quickly changeover to idled operation.